You may be well-aware of the pathophysiology of things like macronutrients, vitamins, and digestion, and have probably witnessed the health effects of abnormal nutrition and its effect on metabolism in the United States (such as diabetes and obesity). On the global scale, especially in resource-poor settings, issues in nutrition—undernutrition and malnutrition—have deep and far-reaching effects on the health of populations and directly relate to key populations in the SDGs, namely women, pregnant women, and children. Thus, this module is situated before the modules on women and children health issues in global health. In the field of global health, the topic of nutrition is often combined with interdependent issues in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). This module is primarily focused on nutrition, but you are encouraged to explore topics in WASH in the supplementary materials if you are interested.
Learning objectives
- Describe the determinants of nutritional status and nutrition needs at different stages of the life course
- Discuss the burden of malnutrition globally and factors that contribute to creating and sustaining that burden
- Discuss multisectoral measures that can be taken to improve maternal and child nutrition
- Imdad A, Sadiq K, Bhutta ZA. Evidence-based prevention of childhood malnutrition. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2011;14(3):276–285.
Hunger in the World of Plenty (1 hour).
Global health learning center: Nutrition.
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- This on-line course through USAID* has seven sessions. Complete all sessions, knowledge re-cap questions (end of session) and take the final exam.
- Via email, submit results of the knowledge recap for each session (make note of how many questions each knowledge recap has—you must answer all of them).
On the Slack discussion board:
- Explore the Unicef website. Who/What is UNICEF? What is their role in global health?
- Find 2–3 articles related to nutrition, food systems, or data on dietary health and share your impressions: "Hunger in the World of Plenty" was recorded ~15 years ago. What issues identified in that lecture are still issues now?
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- What articles did you read? What did you learn from articles? (Reflections, key points, etc.)
- What are your thoughts about interventions supported by UNICEF around nutrition?
- Global Health 101, Chapter 9: Nutrition and Global Health. This chapter is an introduction/refresher to basics in nutrition, but also frames the issue through the lens of global health and offers an introduction to the topic for students with little/no prior exploration of the importance of nutrition in development and progress of populations.
- Consider: Figure 9-3 shows an example of a length and weight for age growth chart based on the U.S. CDC's published data. The WHO also publishes growth charts for infants and children. How do the WHO and CDC growth charts compare? How are they different? What might this mean for evaluating whether a child is "on-track" in a nutritional assessment?
- Global Nutrition Report Executive Summary (updated annually—download the most recent).
- Lancet series on Nutrition (2013). Includes brief video summaries with Q&A from the authors of the key articles.